If you're down to coffee as your worst vice, you're doing very well.

seriously. Let us all be so lucky.

Having gone dry for eight months (so far), I've had the discussion of quitting coffee, to which I said definitively: "NO!"

That one I'm keeping.

Why would habitual coffee drinkers be uncomfortable with coffee being a vice? A lot of coffee drinkers freely and openly admit that that first cup is needed to kick start the day and do so shamelessly.

There might be some tiny fraction of coffee drinkers who spaz out about stuff like that, but they'd generally be the ones spazzing out about everything.

Your theory would fail spectacularly if you replace coffee by alcohol.

You can't imagine the number of studies to highlight the benefits of alcohol. Especially in big wine producing countries.

Please point me to some well-designed study on the benefits of alcohol.

I find it much easier to skip my evening glass of wine than to skip my morning cup of coffee.

Yes, and it also depends on your relationship with work. For some it's more important to clearly cut from it at the end of the day than to get into it in the morning :)

Then I see a lot of people doing both.

Not to mention, those are always drowsy dinner-time drinkers managing to do research into the beneficial properties of alcohol.

An irritated coffee drinker who has been told coffee can be harmful is going to have a whole lot more energy to produce a “counter study”.

This entire thread starting from the GP is full of anecdotal unsubstantiated and glib responses, so I think that since we are not doing the typical HN due diligence of informative substantiated discussions, my theory is that coffee gives me the ability to produce more bullshit that I usually put out and perpetuate falsehood, untruthful information on the internet to stir up the pot, to make intellectual discourse an unbearable activity and my participation leaves the world worse off than it was before. Sips more coffee.

Actually, alcohol is the second most common substance studied for its "beneficial" properties (used to be first, but it's harder to rationalize nowadays).

Would it?

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/841108/Health-ne...

A "vice"? Why apply moral categories to something as innocuous as coffee?

Because we consider caffeine addiction (and substance dependency in general) to be a negative thing.

Even if you assume addiction (without proof, to be sure), how is it necessary to cast it in moral terms? If it is a negative thing, there have to be rational reasons for it being negative. Being judgmental about it only makes those doing the judging feel better about themselves.

Next step: breatharian?